The next few weeks were spent in a flurry of activity, as Don fleshed out his plans and put them into action. The first thing they did was deliver the 'borrowed' phone back to the police, with a succinct but heartfelt apology message left on it, and the phone itself carefully wiped of any prints or traces. After that, the brothers spent a lot of time on stakeouts, covertly tracking Purple Dragon activity throughout the city. They spent almost as much time setting up various gadgets that Don had put together to more closely monitor the Dragons' communications across the entire city - and then feed it into police channels. They also kept up their usual patrols, though slightly cut back from normal so they'd have time for their other activities, and they were careful to avoid any larger Dragon gatherings so as not to alarm them or rile them up.

After almost a month of this, they were relaxing in the Lair one night after dinner, preparing for yet another night of surveillance and patrol, when a news bulletin caught Mikey's attention. "Hey guys, come check this out!" he called excitedly from where he was kneeling on the couch, his hands braced against the couch's back. Once he was sure his brothers were heading over, he spun back around to face the bank of television screens again, bouncing a little on the worn cushions as he listened to the news report.

Raph came up and leant against the back of the couch, while Leo moved to stand beside him, his arms loosely folded as he watched the screens with interest. Don was the last to show up, his goggles pushed up onto his forehead and a grease stain smudged across one cheek, and he dropped down into the couch beside Mikey, sprawling bonelessly.

On screen, a local news reporter was just finishing an interview with one of the senior police officers of New York's forces, who was looking tired but grimly satisfied. The interview ended and the news cut back to the studio reporter just as Don settled in the couch.

"- so in summary: Thanks to a number of anonymous tips over the past few weeks, the New York Police Department were able to carry out a major sting on the criminal gang known as the Purple Dragons," the studio reporter said crisply. "Multiple arrests were made, and an entire warehouse full of illegal weapons seized. Although police were quick to emphasise that the gang members they arrested were only minor players within the gang, and that the Purple Dragons are still a very real threat, it's safe to say that this sting operation - one of the largest and most successful against any criminal gang in recent times - has certainly had an impact on the criminal underworld."

Mikey lowered the volume of the televisions and beamed around at his brothers, who all bore various expressions of satisfaction. "Well, there you have it!" he said cheerfully, flipping the remote control up and down in one hand. "The past few weeks of effort have finally paid off!"

"About time, too," Raph huffed, though the corner of his mouth was still quirked upwards in a little grin. "I was gettin' pretty tired of skulkin' around and playin' stool pigeon."

"And here I thought you liked that pigeon puppet!" Mikey commented cheekily, then yelped as Raph smacked the back of his head.

"That ain't what I meant, and you know it," Raph grumbled, rolling his eyes. "Whackbag." Mikey just stuck his tongue out at Raph as he theatrically rubbed the back of his head.

Leo let out a quiet chuckle. "I hate to break it to you, Raph, but your stool pigeon days aren't over just yet," he said, laying one hand on Raph's shoulder. "I'm thinking that it'll be a good idea to keep up the stuff we've been doing lately, especially given how effective it's now proven to be."

Raph raised a brow ridge. "I dunno if one successful police sting really counts as effective," he pointed out. "Could've just been a fluke."

"It seems effective enough," Don broke in, tilting his head back to look up at Leo and Raph from where he was slouched in the couch. "We won't know for sure until we've given it more time. And for once, the Purple Dragons have been taken down a peg or two without us having to put our own shells directly on the firing line." He gave Raph a lopsided smile. "I know that's not exactly your favourite way of doing things, but I think it's a nice change of pace." He tapped the side of his head with one finger. "Fighting smarter, not harder."

"And nobody fights smarter than our resident genius!" Mikey crowed as he suddenly hauled Don up into a playful headlock and gave him an affectionate noogie. "You are the champion of fighting smarter, Dondon!"

"Gah! Mikey!" Don yelped and flailed in protest, though he made no real effort to actually break free of Mikey's hold yet, too busy trying to hold back his laughter. "I'm flattered, but seriously, let me go, you goober!" His protests however just led to Mikey grinning even more widely and rubbing his knuckles across the top of Don's head even harder than before.

Don finally retaliated by poking Mikey in the sides where he knew he was most ticklish, and Mikey squeaked and twisted around, trying to shelter his vulnerable sides while still keeping Don in the headlock. "No fair!" Mikey yelped, squirming beneath the well-aimed assault. "You're not supposed to fight smarter against me!" Don merely smirked and continued poking Mikey wherever he could reach, and it soon dissolved into an impromptu wrestling match full of laughing and flailing.

Raph just rolled his eyes and looked back at Leo, ignoring his two brothers wrestling on the couch. "So are we still goin' ahead with the plans for tonight then?" he asked with a hint of resignation.

"Actually…" Leo started, watching with amusement as Don finally shoved a helplessly laughing Mikey clear off the couch, then sprawled along the couch's length so he could reach down and continue poking Mikey relentlessly. "I was thinking that we could afford to stay home tonight, give patrol a miss this once. I reckon we've earned a break."

Raph blinked and eyed Leo in surprise, then a grin of approval broke out across his face. But before he could say anything, Mikey suddenly rolled out of Don's reach and bounced back up to his feet, still breathless and wheezing from laughter but his attention now firmly fixed on Leo. "No patrol tonight?" he asked eagerly. "Does this mean we can have a movie marathon night instead?"

Leo rubbed at his chin with one hand and hummed thoughtfully, a solemn look on his face as he pretended to give the idea some serious consideration. Don sat back up on the couch and watched him with anticipation, while Mikey bounced a little on his toes and gave Leo his best wide-eyed, pleading puppy face. Even Raph seemed to be holding his breath as he waited for Leo's response.

Finally Leo gave in with a smile. "All right, all right. Movie marathon night it is!"

Mikey let out a cheer and vaulted over the couch, making Don reflexively duck and Raph quickly sidestep out of the way, then tackled Leo in an enthusiastic hug. "Awesome! I've got a whole stack of movies that I've been wanting to go through! A bunch of action flicks, and thrillers, and cheesy monster movies, and there's even a couple of interesting-looking samurai films too! But first…!" He suddenly let go of Leo and backed off a step, grinning broadly. "Popcorn! We can't have a movie marathon without popcorn!" With that, Mikey dashed off and disappeared into the kitchen.

Don shook his head with an amused smile and hauled himself up out of the couch, then began following Mikey to the kitchen at a more sedate pace. "I'll try to make sure he doesn't drown all the popcorn in butter," he commented in passing.

"Make some'a the caramel stuff too," Raph called after him, then turned back to Leo, who was beginning to look like he was already starting to regret his decision.

"Remind me why I agreed to this," Leo asked dryly, eyeing the kitchen with definite wariness.

Raph snickered and slapped Leo on the shoulder. "'Cause as much as y'like to pretend y'got a stick up your butt, you enjoy movie nights just as much as the rest of us."

"Hey!" Leo protested half-heartedly, trying not to smile. "I do not pretend that I have a stick up my butt, thank you very much."

"Whatever helps ya get to sleep at night," Raph deadpanned, then chuckled and shook his head. "Now c'mon, let's figure out what movies t'watch before Mikey has us all marathoning the worst cheesy monster flicks he can get his hands on."

"Agreed," Leo replied fervently, heading over to the box where Mikey stored the various movies he collected and crouching down beside it so he could rifle through its contents. "If I ever have to watch anything like that… giant shark versus mega squid thing again, I don't think I can be held responsible for my actions. Where does he even find these movies?"

"The dump, where they belong," Raph said with a grin as he accepted the various movies that Leo picked out and handed to him, then stacked them on the low table in front of the couch. "And I can pretty much guarantee that a lot of these movies he gets end up back in the dump."

It didn't take them long to sort out a suitable line-up of movies, and shortly afterwards Don and Mikey emerged from the kitchen again, each bearing two large bowls of fresh popcorn. There was some spirited debate over the choice of movies, but an agreement was soon reached with a minimum of violence and only a little spilled popcorn.

The four turtles then spent the next several hours watching - and commenting on, and mocking, and arguing over, and occasionally yelling at - the handful of movies they'd settled on. By the end of the last movie, all the popcorn was gone, Mikey was wearing one of the empty bowls as a hat (supposedly to protect him from alien brain waves), Raph was half-heartedly threatening to smother Don with a pillow if he ever started nit-picking the movie science again, Don was ignoring said threats and eager to get back to his workshop to try and replicate and improve upon a device used in one of the films, and Leo was seriously considering never letting Mikey bring home movies from the dump ever again.

All in all, they deemed the movie night a great success.

...

The next morning, Leo was the first awake, as usual, and feeling mostly unaffected by the previous night's movie marathon. He padded quietly though the Lair, heading through the main living area on his way towards the kitchen. He idly noted in passing that Don's workshop was silent for once, and adjusted his course to glance inside and make sure Don hadn't passed out face-first onto his keyboard again while working out the details of his movie-inspired invention.

But the workshop was distinctly lacking Don's presence, though the various computer towers were still humming idly, and the monitors were all in sleep mode. Leo made a mental note to congratulate Don later for actually making it to his own bedroom for once and continued on to the kitchen.

He was halfway through making his and Splinter's tea when Raph entered the kitchen as well and blearily made a beeline for the cupboard holding his cereal. "Morning, Raph," Leo greeted amiably, unsurprised when Raph just grunted a wordless greeting in return. Raph had never been much of a morning person, and it always took him a little while to really wake up.

Splinter was the next to show up a minute or two later, the quiet tapping of his walking stick against the floor heralding his arrival. "Good morning, my sons," he said as he took his usual seat at the table, where Leo had his tea waiting for him.

"Good morning, sensei," Leo replied as he started up the coffee machine for Don, his own cup of tea cradled in one hand. Raph mumbled a similar greeting around a mouthful of cereal, still slouched over the bowl with his eyes half-closed and his head propped up on his free hand.

Splinter sipped at his tea, then perked an ear towards Leo. "Your brothers are not up yet?"

Leo nodded in reply. "Donnie actually left his lab for once without anyone forcibly dragging him out, so I figured I'd let him get as much sleep in his own bed as possible. It probably misses him. And Mikey…" He trailed off with a wry little grimace. "Is Mikey."

Splinter just let out a resigned little sigh, and Raph snickered. "Ain't that the truth." He finished off his cereal, looking a little more awake now, then turned to face Leo. "So whose turn is it to turf the goofball outta bed this time?"

"Yours," Leo replied easily, most of his attention still on the coffee machine.

Raph groaned. "Ugh, figures. I swear, he deliberately booby-traps his floor with junk just to make our lives difficult," he grumbled, but got to his feet anyway and dumped his cereal bowl in the sink before striding out of the kitchen and towards the bedrooms.

He pounded his fist against Don's bedroom door as he passed it, then got to Mikey's door and shoved it open. "Yo Mikey, time t'get up!"

The only response from the blanket-covered lump in the middle of Mikey's bed was Klunk raising his head from where he was nestled and blinking lazily at Raph. The orange feline mewed once, then settled back down again, and Raph let out an exasperated sigh. "Mikey, if I have to go in there…!"

The unspecified threat had absolutely no effect, as usual, and after a moment Raph grumbled and began picking his way carefully across the cluttered floor of Mikey's bedroom. It was covered with various action figures, toys, and other random miscellaneous junk, along with boxes and piles of comics, all seemingly scattered around at random. Finally Raph made it to Mikey's bedside, which looked to be the only remotely clear patch of floor space in the entire room. For good reason, too. Raph grabbed Mikey by the top edge of his shell and bodily hauled him, blankets and all, out of the bed and dumped him on the floor.

Klunk leapt clear with a disapproving hiss as Mikey hit the floor on his shell. He yelped and flailed, his limbs caught up in the blankets, then struggled to disentangle himself even as Raph began gingerly picking his way back across the cluttered floor. "Aw man, Raph…!" Mikey whined as he finally got to his feet and piled his blankets haphazardly back onto his bed, then began quickly pulling on his elbow and knee pads. "Did ya hafta wake me up right now? I was having the most awesome dream!"

"Dream on your own time, knucklehead," Raph deadpanned. "Otherwise you're not gonna have time for breakfast before Splinter starts trainin'." Mikey let out a startled squeak, his eyes wide, then finished adjusting his knee pads and jumped up onto his bed. From there he leapt at Raph and springboarded off his shoulders, somersaulting over his head and out through the open door. Klunk rocketed across the floor and followed Mikey out, leaving Raph still standing in the middle of the room. "... It's way too early for this crap," he muttered with a weary, resigned sigh, then gathered his legs beneath himself and cleared the rest of the clutter from a standing jump before heading back to the kitchen.

By the time Raph got back to the kitchen, Mikey had already opened a can of catfood and was crouched down beside Klunk's bowl, dumping the can's contents out into it and cheerfully describing the awesome dream he'd been having to a patient Splinter and a wearily resigned Leo. Klunk wound around Mikey's legs, purring eagerly as he waited for his breakfast. Raph looked around curiously, one brow ridge raised, and waited until Mikey paused for breath before speaking up. "Donnie hasn't shown up yet?" he asked.

Mikey blinked and looked over at him, then back to Leo and Splinter. Leo frowned slightly and shook his head. "Not yet. Did you wake him up?"

"I thumped on his door, that usually gets him up," Raph replied before shooting a bland look in Mikey's direction. "Unlike certain other turtles I could mention."

Mikey just grinned unrepentantly, then straightened up from his crouch and casually tossed the now-empty can into the bin on the other side of the kitchen. "I'll go get him!" he offered before bounding out of the kitchen.

He returned a minute or two later, a puzzled little frown on his face. "Donnie wasn't in his room," he announced to the others. "I checked his lab, too. And the bathroom, and the garage, and even inside the Battleshell. No Donnie."

"Huh." Leo frowned thoughtfully, the expression echoed by Splinter and Raphael. "That's odd… I don't think he would've gone anywhere without telling someone first."

Splinter nodded, his whiskers twitching. "I agree. Donatello is not one to wander off without leaving word."

"Hang on a moment…" Leo pulled his Shellcell out from his belt and flipped it open, then quickly rang Don's Shellcell. There was a tense silence for a moment, only broken by the muffled sound of a Shellcell ringing from the direction of Don's lab. Mikey immediately dashed back out of the kitchen again, then soon returned with the phone in hand. "His duffel bag and bo are still in his lab, too," he told the others without preamble, shifting his weight uneasily from foot to foot. "Guys, something seriously weird's going on here. Donnie would never go anywhere without his phone or his bo!"

"Not without good reason, anyway," Leo replied evenly, trying to keep Mikey from working himself up too much. "We should look for him. Perhaps he's just gone out to check the security cameras, or something."

"I'll go check the monitors!" Mikey dashed off once more, heading for the computer station that hooked up to all the security feeds that Don had set up over the years.

"I'll go pay Leatherhead a visit," Raph volunteered, his hands flexing slightly at his sides. "Maybe brainiac got a stroke of inspiration and needed to nut it out with a fellow tech-head."

"Good idea," Splinter approved with a nod. "Go, and be careful. Call as soon as you find out anything." Raph nodded shortly, then spun on his heel and strode out, his shoulders tense.

Leo watched him go, then turned back to Splinter, worry creasing his brow. "I'll go and check the tunnels past the security feeds, if you can call April and Casey and see if they've heard anything from him," he suggested.

Splinter nodded again, his hands clutching the top of his walking stick and the tip of his tail twitching in agitation. "I will do so, hopefully without concerning them too much."

Leo turned to go, then hesitated and looked back at Splinter, his expression uncertain. "Can you think of anything that might've happened?" he asked quietly, seeking reassurance from his father while his brothers were out of sight.

Splinter shook his head slowly. "I do not know, my son," he replied with obvious reluctance. "But we should not worry overmuch just yet." He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, settling himself with firm resolve. "I am sure there is a reasonable explanation. We will find Donatello."

Leo eyed Splinter for a long moment, then nodded. "We will," he agreed, drawing strength from his father's certainty. "I'll keep in touch." With that, Leo headed out as well to begin searching the tunnels around the Lair.

Splinter watched Leo head out, then let out a quiet sigh, his shoulders slumping slightly. He had a bad feeling about Donatello's disappearance, but he couldn't let his remaining sons see that. He offered up a quiet prayer for Donatello's safe return before going to call April and Casey, and silently hoped that time would not prove him to be a liar.